The Workouts You Did 10 Years Ago Are Helping You Today, Study Finds

Thanks, younger me

The Workouts You Did 10 Years Ago Are Helping You Today, Study Finds

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Whole summers spent doing prison curls, running wind-sprints and crushing crunches on the mat. Your glory-days bod, god rest its soul, was something special.

And according to a study out of Duke’s Molecular Physiology Institute, the exercise you did to achieve it might still be benefitting you today.

From 1998 to 2003, researchers at Duke conducted a series of studies called STRRIDE (Studies Targeting Risk Reduction Interventions through Defined Exercise), which called up a bunch of sedentary, overweight middle-aged Americans, and had them either A) continue doing nothing, B) begin a light work-out routine or C) adopt a comparably intense training regimen with lots of jogging. This went on for eight months, and by the end of it, members of both “B” and “C” were noticeably healthier in the realms of aerobic fitness, blood pressure, insulin sensitivity and waist circumference.

That was that. Until 10 years later, when Duke commissioned a “reunion study”, and found that those in the intense exercise group had lost only 5% of their aerobic capacity, compared to 10% for the sedentary participants, while even the walkers displayed markedly better metabolic health. The head of the study, Dr. William Kraus, explained to The New York Times that while his team hasn’t determined a clear-cut conclusion regarding exercise’s long-term effects on the body, the study does point to its enduring benefits.

Call it a “physiological reserve,” call it the good old days saying hello. We should all get moving.

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